Your commute, your climate: An explainer

KD Suarez

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Your commute, your climate: An explainer
Here is an explanation of how we got the values in the 'Your commute, your climate' interactive project

MANILA, Philippines – Here is an explanation of how we got the values in the “Your commute, your climate” interactive project.

We first ask users to input the number of hours they take riding public transport (t).

We then compute the number of hours that person takes every week, assuming he/she goes to work or school 5 times a week. We then multiply it by 52 weeks to get the total number of hours a year. This does not take into account holidays.

time spent commuting yearly = time of commute per day x 5 days x 52 weeks

To compute the cost, we used the concept of value of time (VOT). Value of time, in transport economics, is basically the monetary equivalent of the time you spend traveling.

For this, we use the VOT values (in Php per hour, Php/h) in the 1999 Metro Manila Urban Transportation Integration Study (MMUTIS),1 and adjusted the values for inflation (base year 2010).2

We use this formula to compute for the value of time, in Php:

monetary value in PHP = time x value of time

For the carbon dioxide emissions, we compute the value using this method:

With time (t) as input, we compute the average distance (d) a car, bus, or jeep would take based on the average speed (v) of the vehicles in Metro Manila traffic.

distance = time x average vehicle speed

The average speed of a car was based on MMDA data from 2006 (29.9 km/h), while the value for buses (17.57 km/h) and jeepneys (14.18 km/h) are weighted average speeds, based on 2012 data.3

We then compute the emissions (e), based on the emissions factors (f, in kgCO2/km) per type of vehicle,4 taking into account the type of fuel used.

daily emissions = distance / emissions factor

We then multiply it again by 5 (days in a week), and then 52 (weeks in a year), to get the annual emissions per vehicle.

annual emissions = daily emissions x 5 days x 52 weeks

We also took into account the load factor, or the average number of passengers per vehicle type,3 to get the individual CO2 emissions.

emissions per person = annual emissions per vehicle / load factor

The end result is the carbon dioxide emissions per person, per year, per type of vehicle. – Rappler.com

1 Japan International Cooperation Agency. MMUTIS: Metro Manila Urban Transportation Integration Study, March 1999.

2 Inflation adjustment computation: 2014 value = 1999 value x (Consumer Price Index 2014 / CPI 1999); baseline is 2010 = 100. CPI data from the World Bank.

3 Japan International Cooperation Agency and National Economic Development Authority Philippines. Roadmap for Transport Infrastructure Development for Metro Manila and Its Surrounding Areas (Region III and Region IV-A), Final Report. March 2014.

4 Ramos, John Michael E. Application of Spreadsheet-Based Carbon Footprint Tool “TransCO2” in Estimating Carbon Dioxide Emissions of a Fuel Switch Project: Conversion of Jeepneys to Auto-LPG. BS Thesis. Institute of Civil Engineering, University of the Philippines Diliman, 2014.

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